BELMAR — Reflecting on the storm that has consumed his life and his work, Gov. Chris Christie said there are at least three things he would have done differently.

His admonition to “get the hell off the beach” ahead of Hurricane Irene last year gained him national attention – and it worked. But this time around, he said, he should have given a more forceful order to evacuate the barrier islands.

“I ordered the evacuation, but I didn’t yell as much as I did the year before, cause I was candidly a little nervous about whether these guys were right, the National Weather Service or not,” Christie said at a town hall in Belmar.

“We still had a bunch of people who stayed,” he said, “and we lost some lives as a result. And that weighs on me because I think if maybe I’d been a little bit tougher they wouldn’t have died and you think about that when you’re governor. But you do the best that you can under the circumstances.”

Gov. Christie on regrets in decision making following Hurricane SandySpeaking to an at-capacity crowd at a town hall in Belmar, Gov. Chris Christie responded to a question asking about regrets in his reactions following Hurricane Sandy. The Governor told the crowd that while he hasn't had much time to reflect, he wonders if being more forceful about evacuations could have saved more lives. (Video by Michael Monday/The Star-Ledger)

Secondly, Christie said he would have instituted odd-even gas rationing in New Jersey two days earlier than he did. However, he noted he put the system into effect sooner than New York did, and it “calmed things down here.”

Lastly, Christie said he would have called in more staff – in addition to cabinet members working 18-hour days – to help handle issues as the storm bore down on the state. “What started happening is you had more problems than people,” he said. He waited three or four days after Sandy made landfall to expand the staff.

An after-action study will likely reveal other areas for improvement, he said.

The day the storm made landfall, Christie said former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida advised him to act swiftly.

“Listen, don’t dwell on your decisions because you’re going to have to make 10 or 12 an hour,” Christie said, recalling the conversation. “And if you don’t make them, it’s worse than if you make one that’s just a little bit wrong. So make decisions and move on. And if they turn out to be wrong you can fix them. But if you delay, if you kind of wring your hands and worry too much about each decision, the entire system is just going to just back up and you’re not going to be able to get people the help they need.”

For Christie’s first post-Sandy town hall, hundreds packed the gym and an overflow room at Belmar Borough Municipal Building in one of the towns hit hardest by the hurricane. The administration rolled out a new video with footage of him touring devastation.

Buoyed by the setting — and perhaps news that Newark Mayor Cory Booker will not run for governor next year — Christie spoke and answered questions for more than two hours. Town halls usually don’t last longer than an hour and a half.